ABSTRACT

The landowners formed an exclusive experiential community in which their activities, opportunities, and capabilities to use political influence slowly altered their political identities from subjects into early citizens. This chapter explores how the peasantry became early citizens and the public sphere developed in Swedish rural areas, especially in Western Finland. Most of the population lived in rural areas, and thus, the parishes played an important part in political development. The chapter presents large utilitarian public projects as activators and promoters for local political participation and decision-making. The peasantry of the Swedish Realm was present in the local political arena, and it had significant experience in terms of participation in local decision-making. Local communities moved from the consensus principle to more individual decision-making. The chapter re-evaluates the development of citizenship and the public sphere in eighteenth-century rural Sweden. The parish men practiced and learned by participating in different political decision-making processes in the local public sphere.